In colonial New England, the preacher was as educated as anyone in the community. Harvard was established September 8, 1636, to train preachers, and the curriculum included Greek, Hebrew, Bible, Chaldee, Syriac, rhetoric, and history. Latin and Greek were prerequisites to admission. Yale, originally named the Collegiate School, was founded in 1701. Its original curriculum was classical studies, and it adhered to Puritanism. Princeton, originally named the College of New Jersey, was founded in 1746 to train ministers.
The educational qualifications of a pastor today depend on the denomination. Some require a Master of Divinity, or an M.Div., a degree following four years of college and sometimes followed by a Doctor of Ministry, or a D.Min. At the other end of the continuum are churches that ordain teenagers. Somewhere in between are the denominations with the Bible institute or Bible school, a post-secondary school that offers diplomas but not always degrees.
Reading abilities in the United States have been going down for at least a century. We know our electronics better, but the basics less. The father of an eighth-grade girl in Oregon complained to her public school that she could not spell. The answer was that if he wanted her to be able to spell, he could teach her, for she would be using a spell-checker. This might seem a bit extreme, and of course, an analysis of at least a couple of hundred schools around the country would be required to see how prevalent this attitude is, but it does expose just how far away from the basics we have gotten in our educational goals.
See the full article by Howard Merken, November 30, 2022